Archive | May 2005

Finally, A Good Book!

May31

First I read The TIme Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, and you can read what I thought about that book if you’re interested. Next, I read Time Lottery by Nancy Moser, and it erred in the opposite direction–much too preachy and full of predictable and not very interesting characters. Then, I decided to read Case Histories by Kate Atkinson since The LitBLog Co-op, a group of literary bloggers who are trying to encourage the reading of new and less noticed books, chose it for their first recommended book a few weeks ago. I respond to peer pressure as much as the next reader, so I really tried to like this book. I failed. The characters are not trite and predictable; they’re just not very likeable. I found maybe two characters in a book that was overfilled with characterization that I could identify with, root for, or even want to read more about. Private Detective Jackson Brodie is a seedy British ex-cop. He spends the book talking to people involved in the three sordid cases he’s working on at the same time, getting attacked (someone is trying to kill him), and having sex with or refusing to have sex with various of his clients. Oh, yes, he also has an eight year old daughter, Marlee, and an ex-wife who hates him. I can see why. I almost feel sorry for Jackson when his house is blown up and when he has dental miseries, but he squanders my sympathy by acting generally like a creep. Most of the other characters in the book are fairly creepy, too. There’s an ax-murderer, three abused and consequently borderline deranged unmarried sisters, and an overweight bereaved father. The last one, Theo, a father who can’t get over the murder of his favorite daughter, is one of the two likeable characters. But he’s not prominent enough in the story to make it worthwhile. The other character I was halfway interested in was a ex-druggie runaway girl with purple hair. Obviously, I was desperate by this time to find something that made this book worth reading. As usual, I finished it, but it really got worse instead of better.

So, a couple of days ago I was ready to head back to the nineteenth century. There are good authors back there whose books have not all been explored. Give me more Dickens, Thackeray, even George Eliot or Thomas Hardy. However, before I did a little time-traveling of my own, I decided to try a book recommended by Carmon at Buried Treasure and by several of her commenters. Peace Like a River by Leif Enger was like a oasis, like water to a drowning woman. (Sorry, that was one of my father-in-law’s favorite jokes.) No, truly, what an excellent story!

Peace Like a River tells the story of the Land family, father Jeremiah, two sons, Davy and Reuben, and a daughter, Swede. The children’s mother walked out on them long before the time of the novel. Reuben, eleven years old, tells the story. Davy is sixteen when the story starts, and Reuben looks up to his older brother even though the two of them are very different. The central salient fact of Reuben’s life is his asthma; Davy is the epitome of the strong older brother.

“Davy wanted life to be something you did on your own; the whole idea of a protective, fatherly God annoyed him. I would understand this better in years to come, but never subscribe to it, for I was weak and knew it. I hadn’t the strength or the instincts of my immigrant forbears. The weak must bank on mercy–without which, after all, I wouldn’t have lasted fifteen minutes.”

Of course, this statement of Reuben’s is reminiscent of Jesus’ saying to the Pharisees: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17) Not that Davy is a Pharisee; he’s more like a lost sheep, an exile, by his own choice, from grace. Reuben, because of his asthma, knows that it is only by the grace of God, by a miracle, that he is able to breathe in and out. When crisis comes to the Land family, it is Reuben who survives and lives a healthy life, and Davy who is lost.

The language in this novel is beautiful. The author, Leif Enger, worked for many years as a reporter and a producer for Minnesota Public Radio, and the poetic, yet sparkling clear, language in this his first novel is obviously the work of a fine craftsman of words. Examples:

“No grudge ever had a better nurse.”
“Since that fearful night, Dad had responded with an almost impossible work of belief. . . . He had laid up prayer as with a trowel. You know this is true, and if you don’t it is I the witness who am to blame.”
“Listening to Dad’s guitar, halting yet lovely in the search for phrasing, I thought: Fair is whatever God wants to do.”

This last quote gives one of the central themes of the book. God is. He has compassion on the weak, on those who know their need of Him. But He doesn’t always work in the way we want, doesn’t make the story turn out the way we want it to end, doesn’t always give us the miracle. Toward the end of Peace Like a River there’s a wonderfully written chapter in which the narrator describes heaven. The chapter seems to owe something to C.S. Lewis, but it’s as good an imaginative description as Lewis ever wrote himself. Finally, at the very end of the novel, Rueben tells the reader:

“I breathe deeply, and certainty enters into me like light, like a piece of science, and curious music seems to hum inside my fingers.
Is there a single person on whom I can press belief?
No sir.
All I can do is say, Here’s how it went. Here’s what I saw.
I’ve been there and am going back.
Make of it what you will.”

Rueben is a witness as all Christians are. May I be as strong a witness in my weakness to God’s grace and mercy.

Johnstown Flood

May31

On May 31, 1889, the South Fork Dam, which held back Lake Connemaugh on a mountain above Johnstown, Pennsylvania, burst. Twenty million tons of water came crashing down into the valley where the town of 30,000 lay. Over 2200 people died in the flood and in fires that followed that night.

We own the children’s book, The Terrible Wave by Marden Dahlstedt, which tells the fictional story of Megan Maxwell, a teenage girl who survives the flood. Mrs. Dahlstedt says in the author’s note in the back of the book: “My interest in the Johnstown Flood stems from the fact that my grandparents survived it. . . I grew up with family stories of the flood, some of which have been incorporated in The Terrible Wave.”

I, too, grew up hearing family stories of a flood–in dry West Texas of all places. On September 17, 1936 my dad’s home near the Concho River in San Angelo, Texas was flooded. My grandmother said she put a baby picture of my dad up in the rafters before she left her house with my dad who was about five years old. That picture is the only surviving photograph of my dad as a baby. My mom, on the other hand, remembers another natural disaster, a 1953 tornado that destroyed much of the Lake View area of San Angelo. According to the San Angelo Standard Times, the tornado killed eleven people.

What natural, or man made, disasters has your family experienced or survived? Do your grandparents or parents tell stories like these? Have you written the stories down for your children to read someday? I wish my parents would write down stories from their childhood and young adult days for my children to have. I’m afraid that even with the simple stories I told in the preceeding paragraph that I may get some of the details wrong. It just seems to me that the way people behave in a crisis tells so much about their character and their ability to cope with everyday life.

Picture Book Preschool

May30

Picture Book Preschool is a preschool/kindergarten curriculum which consists of a list of picture books to read aloud for each week of the year and a character trait, a memory verse, and activities, all tied to the theme for the week. You can purchase an updated, downloadable version (pdf file) of Picture Book Preschool by Sherry Early at Biblioguides.

WEEK 22 (May) AFRICA
Character Trait: Respect
Bible Verse: The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24:1

1. Haskins, James. Count Your Way Through Africa. Carolrhoda, 1989.
2. Feelings, Muriel. Moja Means One. Dial, 1971.
3. McCauley, Jane R. Africa’s Animal Giants. National Geographic, 1987. OP
4. Lewin, Hugh. Jafta. Carolrhoda, 1983.
5. Feelings, Muriel. Jambo Means Hello. Dutton, 1974.
6. Lewin, Hugh. Jafta and the Wedding. Carolrhoda, 1983.
7. Williams, Karen Lynn. Galimoto. Lothrop Lee, 1990.

Discuss: Where is Africa? How is life different for people who live in Africa and people who live in the U.S.?
Activities: Pretend, like Jafta, to be different African animals. How does an elephant walk? Stretch up tall to be a giraffe.

Born May 29th

May29

An unlikely trio of birthdays today: Patrick Henry (b. 1736), G.K. Chesterton (b. 1874), and John Fitzgerald Kennedy (b. 1917).

Brown Bear Daughter memorized the last part of Patrick Henry’s famous speech before the Virginia House of Burgesses this year for school. I wish you could hear her stirring rendition. However, you can go here to hear Richard Schumann give the speech.
Did you know that Patrick Henry’s first wife, Sarah Shelton, was mentally ill and in danger of harming herself and that he made a room for her in his basement since there were no appropriate facilities in the colonies for the confinement of the mentally ill? Sarah died in the same year, 1775, that her husband gave his Liberty or Death speech. However, she and Patrick had six children, and Patrick Henry later married Dorothy Dandridge who was twenty- one years younger than he. The couple had nine children. (Total: 15 children. Talk about a full quiver!) He served four terms as governor of Virginia, and he turned down appointments as Washington’s Secretary of State, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Adams’ envoy to France.

“Gentlemen may cry ‘Peace! Peace!’ but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but, as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was nothing if not quotable. He wrote detective stories, other short stories, poetry, rather odd novels and 1000’s of essays, apologetics and literary criticism. He was a large man with a large personality. In contrast to Patrick Henry, he and his wife had no children. Chesterton was a Catholic Christian, and he was somewhat prophetic, as you can see from these timely quotations.

“Let all the babies be born. Then let us drown those we do not like.” – Babies and Distributism, GK’s Weekly, 11/12/32

“Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.” – Autobiography, 1937

“The position we have now reached is this: starting from the State, we try to remedy the failures of all the families, all the nurseries, all the schools, all the workshops, all the secondary institutions that once had some authority of their own. Everything is ultimately brought into the Law Courts. We are trying to stop the leak at the other end.” – ILN, 3/24/23

If you are old enough to remember, where were you when you heard about the assassination of JFK? FYI, not only was John F. Kennedy born on the same day of the year as Patrick Henry and G.K. Chesterton, he also died on the very same date, November 22, 1963, as two other famous men, C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley. Peter Kreeft’s book, Between Heaven and Hell, imagines a post-mortem philosophical discussion between these three men as to the realtive merits of humanistic modernism (Kennedy), Eastern mysicism (Huxley) and Christianity (Lewis). I highly recommend the book.

Oh, I was in my second grade classroom, and I remember my teacher, Mrs. Bouska, crying. The only problem with that memory is that, as best I can figure out, I was in the first grade in November 1963. I don’t get it either.

Born May 28th

May28

Frederic WIlliam Maitland, b. 1850. English lawyer, historian, lecturer, and jurist. I always go for the personal: one site noted that Maitland was a great friend of Virginia Woolf’s father.

Ian Fleming, b. 1908. Creator of James Bond, the famous fictional spy, but I prefer Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Walker Percy, b. 1916. American Southern novelist and essayist. He was Catholic, died in 1990. I read one book by Percy because I kept hearing what a great novelist. I can’t remember the title even when I look at a list of his books. I only remember that someone in the book was sitting in a tree for a very long time (maybe trying to break some kind of record?), and someone else was putting stuff (drugs?) into the water supply. Oh, and the setting was southern Louisiana or Mississippi or somewhere similar. Obviously, I didn’t get much out of it. The people in the novel seemed to me to all be crazy. Maybe I was too young when I read it. Or maybe not.

Rudolph Giuliani, b. 1944. Good mayor for NYC, bad presidential candidate for Republicans.

Heroes or Wimps?

May26

Tony Blankley: “What shall we call these 14 senators? Trustees, Regents, Governing Board Members, Blessed Ones, Lord Protectors, Proconsuls, Oligarchs, Cabalists, Conspirators, Usurpers? For the moment it doesn’t matter. History will give them their final designation. Certainly they see themselves as saviors of the Senate traditions.”

Peggy Noonan: “Back to the senators. Why did they put on that performance the other day? Yes, it was sheer exuberant egotism; it was the excitement of the TV lights; it was their sly conviction that if they laud themselves they will be appearing to laud the institution; and it was, no doubt, the counsel of their advisers that in the magic medium of television, if you declare you are a “hero” often enough people will come to associate the word “hero” with you. Advisers, you must stop telling them this. Please.”

Cal Thomas: “Why are Republicans afraid to use power? The excuse that they haven’t had it that long is no longer valid. They’ve held power in Congress for a decade and now have united government. It must be a character flaw. They prefer the praise of liberals to the affirmation of their conscience.”

Thomas Sowell: “The Senate Democrats hung tough and the Republicans wimped out. The Republicans had the votes but they didn’t have the guts.”

Frist Says “Constitutional Option” is Still on the Table

May25

I just received this email forwarded from Tim Lambert, Republican activist from Texas:

Subject: Constitutional Option Alive As Democrats Crack On Judges

As promised, an update on the judicial nominee front …

Last night, an arrangement was reached by fourteen of my colleagues. I was not a party to it, and here’s why…

I do not agree with it because it does not get the job done of ensuring fair, up or down votes on all judicial nominees sent to the Senate by the President.

It is my firm belief that–on principle–all judicial nominees deserve an up or down vote on the floor of the United States Senate.

The new understanding, if followed in good faith, affirms my principle to some extent. It marks some break in the partisan obstruction of the past two years, and ensures that seven outstanding jurists-including Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor–will get the fair up or down votes they have long deserved.

But it does not grant fairness to all other jurists. It still allows mindless filibusters to be triggered at the whim of a minority more interested in obstruction than progress.

And that is a shame.

So make no mistake, the Constitutional Option remains on the table. If the minority again acts in bad faith–if they resume their campaign of mindless judicial obstruction–I will NOT hesitate to call it to a vote.

Not for a second.

For too long on judicial nominees, the filibuster was abused to facilitate partisanship, and subvert principle.

We have exposed the injustice of judicial obstruction in the last Congress, and advanced the core Constitutional principle that all judicial nominees deserve a fair up or down vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

So the Senate will begin to execute this arrangement, with a vote up or down on Priscilla Owen. Giving up their minority-party led obstructionism, the Senate invoked cloture on her today by a vote of 81-18. Priscilla Owen–after four years, two weeks and two days–will finally receive the fair, up or down vote she deserves.

And, mark my words, more judges like her will follow in the days ahead. I hope the minority will respect the will of the majority, and give judges the courtesy, the respect, of a fair, up or down vote.

Bill Frist

=============================================

Another question: What does this mean? IF Frist no longer has the votes to change the filibuster rules since seven Republicans have signed on to this deal, how can he say the option is still on the table?

My Two Cents Worth–Mostly Questions

May25

On the Senate deal concerning filibusters and judicial nominations:

I read a summary of the deal, signed by seven Democrats and seven Republicans, at HughHewitt.com. As I read it, the Democrats agree to “let” the Senate vote on three judicial nominees that have been blocked, and the Republicans agree not to change the Senate rules to prohibit filibusters of judicial nominees in this Congress. So the Republicans can’t get all their nominees voted on, and they can’t stop the Democrats from filibustering a possible Supreme Court nominee should a vacancy come up. And the Democrats can’t stop Janice Roges Brown, Priscilla Owens, and William Pryor from becoming judges.

Question #1: Why don’t the Republicans let the Democrats actually filibuster? I mean filibuster like in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I don’t understand why the Dems are allowed to threaten filibuster and get whatever they want. Let them do it. I think they’d get tired, and the country would get tired of watching them block the business of Congress for no discernable reason. I think everyone would be ready to move on after about a week, and Congress would be unable to do anything to us in the meantime.

Question #2: Do most people know or care about this whole mess? I care because I care who becomes a U.S. judge. I think the courts have been leading this country in the wrong direction for quite a while, and I’m ready for judges who will interpret the actual Constitution instead of writing a virtual new Constitution of the (liberal) mind. However, I’m betting that most people just have too much of a life to worry about filibusters and compromises.

Question #3: Why are the Republicans so scared to stand up to the Democrats? Or do we have seven or eight RINOS who don’t really want conservative judges in the first place but can’t admit it for political reasons? I just don’t see what is so explosive about the “nuclear option.” What would they be blowing up? The tradition of the Senate is not to filibuster judicial nominees. So nobody would be changing tradition, only putting it into the rules. Where are the senators who qualify for JFK’s Profiles in Courage? Absent.

The Time Traveler’s WIfe

May24

I just finished this book by Audrey Niffenegger, and I must say that I have mixed feelings about it. It was a good story, but it was also very confusing. I don’t see how the author herself kept everything straight in a story where the main character, Henry, was constantly jumping from one time to another. He goes back in time and talks to himself as a boy. He goes forward in time and encounters people who are still alive after he’s already died. He meets people in the past who will be part of his adult life, but because he meets them when he is actually, say, 40 years old going back in time, he doesn’t know them when he meets them in chronological time at age 20. Henry time travels involuntarily; it’s like a genetic defect. He never knows when he will suddenly be thrown into a different time and place, and he’s not allowed to take anything with him. So he always shows up in a different time stark naked. This naked-you-came-into-this-world-and-naked-you-shall-return rule creates some serious problems as you can imagine.

The other thing that bothered me about this novel was the sex. Sex is very important to Henry and his girlfriend/wife, Clare. Call me a prude, but I just skimmed all the many, many, many descriptions of Henry’s and Clare’s sex life. The fact that this physical connection was important to both of them was a significant idea in the story. Since Henry is always leaving and coming back unexpectedly, I can understand that physical intimacy might be even more vital to their relationship than it is in a “normal” marriage. Nevertheless, spare me the details next time, O.K.?

There’s also an Odysseus and Penelope theme carried throughout the novel. Henry is Odysseus, always leaving, having adventures, returning to hearth and home frequently, but sometimes much too briefly. Clare is Penelope, waiting for Henry to come to her as a child in the meadow near her home, as a young adult when she and Henry meet for the first time (for him), as a wife when Henry time travels to unknown destinations. Instead of weaving, Clare builds paper sculptures. Henry, like Odysseus, must face and overcome all sorts of obstacles to come home to his patient and loving wife. I don’t know if Henry is a hero or not, but Clare is certainly a Persistent Penelope. When a friend tells Clare that she can’t just sit around waiting for Henry to appear for the rest of her life, Clare replies, “Watch me.”

In the end, the theme of faithfulness to a relationship in the face of suffering and great difficulty is probably the redeeming feature in this novel. And trying to figure out the chronology of the novel in a non-chronological world is kind of fun –when it’s not frustrating. The graphic sex and the decadent lifestyles of some of the characters are the downsides. I’m not sure whether or not it was worth it, but I usually finish whatever I start.

Picture Book Preschool: Third Week in May

May22

Picture Book Preschool is a preschool/kindergarten curriculum which consists of a list of picture books to read aloud for each week of the year and a character trait, a memory verse, and activities, all tied to the theme for the week. You can purchase an updated, downloadable version (pdf file) of Picture Book Preschool by Sherry Early at Biblioguides.

WEEK 21 (May) ANIMAL STORIES
Character Trait: Curiosity
Bible Verse: And the child (Jesus) grew and became strong. Luke 2:40a

1. Heilbroner, Jan. Robert the Rose Horse. Random, 1962.
2. Tafuri, Nancy. Have You Seen My Duckling? Greenwillow, 1984.
3. Ichikawa, Satomi. Nora’s Duck. Philomel, 1991. OP
4. Flack, Marjorie. Angus and the Ducks. Doubleday, 1930.
5. Shaw, Nancy. Sheep in a Jeep. Houghton Mifflin, 1986.
6. Tworkov, Jack. The Camel Who Took a Walk. Dutton, 1951. OP
7. Rey, H.A. Curious George. Houghton Mifflin, 1941.

Discuss: What is good about curiosity? How can curiosity get you into trouble?
Activities: Play a rhyming game after reading Sheep in a Jeep. You say a word, and your child says a rhyming word.